I have tons of usable, constructive ways to run a school and a classroom. Conversely, our current Superintendent of Instruction in Idaho, Tom Luna, seems bent on destroying the education process. Under Superintendent Luna’s and Governor Butch Otter’s leadership the budget for education has been cut seventeen percent over the last two years. This translated to a seven percent pay cut for all employees in my local school district last year. All districts deal with the cuts in their own creative way to try and survive.
Now, within the last month, the ignorance gets even more impactful. Here are the lovely highlights from Tom Luna’s plan, as presented to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, on Jan. 18, 2011:
-In 2012‐2013, the state will require all 9th graders to take 2 online credits per year. By the Class of 2016, all high school students will take 2 online courses per year.
-All 9thgraders will receive a laptop as part of their educational experience.
–Laptops: $4.7 million a year
–All maintenance, repair and support provided by the state.
–Teacher training: $800,000 a year
-Implement pay‐for‐performance plan for teachers and administrators.
-Purchase laptops for every high school student
-Increasing student‐teacher ratio by 1 to 2 students over next 5 years in grades 4‐12 will save $500 million.
–FY2012: increase the divisor in grades 4‐12 by 1.25 to save $62.8 million a year.
–FY2013: increase the divisor in grades 4‐12 by another 0.75 to save an additional $37.9 million a year.
–In FY2013‐FY2016, the state will save $100.7 million a year.
-While class sizes have declined, student achievement has remained flat nationwide.
-Credible research shows the greatest factor in a student’s academic success is the quality of the teacher in the classroom –no matter the size of the class.
•Linda Darling‐Hammond recently cited renowned research on this topic: “Of all the factors we study, class size, ethnicity, location, poverty –they all pale to triviality in the face of teacher effectiveness.”
Reduce secondary staffing by 770 positions over two years through attrition.
This end the Highlights of Luna's plan...
What a joke! It is obvious Tom Luna hasn’t got a clue about how great education is delivered. This “plan” has so many flaws I don’t know where to begin. Over the next few days I will tackle each flaw.
I guess number one on my list is the off base comment that it’s research based that classroom size does not affect the quality of education. Did Luna ever give a writing assignment to a student in school? NO!
Writing, which is the synthesis of many mental processes, is highly valuable. These assignments take forever for a teacher to grade. You have to read, catch spelling and grammar errors, topic sentences, format, voice; this is just a small list of things to correct. Now for the student to benefit from a writing assignment you have to talk with them, instruct them, one on one. Do you think there is time for this with 33 kids in each class?
How about math, did Luna ever give a math test to a class of 30 students? Obviously not. You have to grade not only tests, but daily work, and re-teach concepts not understood by individual students. This is so obvious to educators; it irks me that I have to correct our instructional leader for the entire state of Idaho - effective education clearly needs a low number of students to each teacher ratio.
Now add in the children who are the learning environment destructors, the students who hate school. Some kids don’t see the value of education. Some are violent, loud, or just plain lazy, how does a teacher have time to straighten out these behavior problems when there are 33 students in each class?
These are obvious, practical, real-world experience reasons to not stack students deep in classrooms. As if common sense isn’t enough, here is peer reviewed, real academic research stating the importance of having low student to teacher ratios:
Educational Attainment, Teacher-Student Ratios, and the Risk of Adult Incarceration Among U.S. Birth Cohorts Since 1910
Richard Arum, Gary LaFree. Sociology of Education. Albany: Oct 2008. Vol. 81, Iss. 4; pg. 397, 25 pgs
Class Size: A Battle Between Accountability and Quality Instruction
Cynthia Januszka, Lisbeth Dixon-Krauss. Childhood Education. Olney: Spring 2008. Vol. 84, Iss. 3; pg. 167, 4 pgs
Experimental Analysis of Class Size
Project STAR. In 1985, Lamar Alexander, the governor of Tennessee, led an initiative to assess the usefulness of having small class sizes in the primary grades. He authorized funds to conduct an experimental study of this issue, known as Project Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (Project STAR). The project used random assignment of students and teachers to three types of classes: 1) a small class of 13-17 students, 2) a regular class with 22-25 students, or 3) a regular class with an aide to assist the teacher. The program lasted four years, following students from kindergarten through 3rd grade. All groups in the study received the same curriculum and materials. The sample was large, with approximately 6,400 pupils participating. Results from the study showed that students in small classes did better than their counterparts in larger classes on subject area tests in reading, math, science, social studies, and spelling. Minority students also made higher gains in smaller classes. In addition to the academic improvements, teachers were able to give more individualized attention to students, which helped to decrease the amount of behavior problems (Achilles, 2003; Bracey, 1995; Mosteller, 1995).
Lasting Benefits Study. The Lasting Benefits Study used an experimental analysis to evaluate the long-term benefits of reduced class size on student achievement. This study was a three-year follow-up (1989-1991) that tracked the progress of more than 4,500 students from Project STAR. The progress of students in the experimental group was monitored when they returned to classes of average size. Findings from the study indicated that students who were taught in small size classes in the early grades performed better than their peers when they returned to regular size classes (Mosteller, 1995).
Burke County Initiative. In 1991, a pilot study on the effects of reduced class sizes in the elementary grades was conducted in the Burke County Schools in North Carolina. In the first year of implementation, the superintendent reduced 1st-grade class sizes in four elementary schools to 15 students per class. In the following years, all of the 1st-grade classes and some of the 2nd- and 3rd-grade classes were added to the study, and the teachers also received specialized staff development in reading, math, and science. These treatments were based on the rationale that increased teacher training combined with lower class sizes would make the most difference in student achievement.
The Burke County Initiative was a quasi-experimental study that was analyzed by matching the students in the experimental schools (small classes) to students in the control schools (average size classes) following treatment. Students were matched on gender, socioeconomic status, teacher experience, and test scores (Egelson, Harman, & Achilles, 1996). Results showed that the students in the smaller classes significantly outperformed the control group on reading and math tests (Egelson et al., 1996).
California's Initiative. In response to the student achievement gains reported in Project STAR, the California legislature passed an initiative in 19% to commit more than $1 billion a year to reducing class size. Funds were allocated to schools that decreased their K-3 classes to a maximum of 20 students. Within six weeks, most of the California school districts began to reduce their class sizes. This was a large-scale endeavor, with approximately 1.8 million students placed in small classes by the end of the third year. As students were not randomly assigned to experimental groups, this initiative was a pre-experimental study that merely compared the Stanford Achievement Test scores of students in the small classes to those of students in large classes. Students in the smaller classes did show small academic gains, but there were concerns regarding the program. As a result of the large-scale endeavor, California lacked enough qualified teachers to instruct the children in the small classes. Consequently, teacher qualifications declined within the three-year period of the initiative. Also, California's curriculum standards were still under development when the initiative took full effect, causing confusion about which curriculum to use (Stetcher, Bohrnstedt, Kirst, McRobbie, & Williams, 2001).
Teacher Training. A two-year study was conducted to investigate whether teachers' expectations and opinions concerning small class size matched student academic achievement (Shapson, Wright, Eason, & Fitzgerald, 1980). Fourth- and fifth-grade students and their teachers were randomly assigned to one of four class sizes (16, 23, 30, and 37 students, respectively). Results from this experimental study revealed that teachers rarely changed their teaching strategies when placed in smaller classes. Teachers believed that students in the smaller classes would outperform those in larger classes on measures of academic achievement, but little or no difference was found in either students' achievement or teachers' instructional methods. The researchers concluded that teacher training was a necessary precursor for placing teachers in smaller classes.
Doing More with Less
Anne C Lewis. Phi Delta Kappan. Bloomington: Apr 2008. Vol. 89, Iss. 8; pg. 547, 2 pgs
The Wisdom of Class-Size Reduction
Elizabeth Graue, Kelly Hatch, Kalpana Rao, Denise Oen. American Educational Research Journal. Washington: Sep 2007. Vol. 44, Iss. 3; pg. 670, 31 pgs
Size matters to students' grades
Rebecca Attwood. The Times Higher Education Supplement : THE. London: Dec 16, 2010. , Iss. 1978; pg. 10
Abstract (Summary)
The research, published in The Economic Journal, provides "some of the first estimates" of the impact of class size on university students' academic achievement as measured by their end-of-year test scores, say the authors, Oriana Bandiera, Valentino Larcinese and Imran Rasul. "There is robust evidence of a negative class-size effect - on average, larger classes reduce students' academic achievement," they write.
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